Depicting Starships...

[aramis]

The question for me now, is whether or not I should attempt a redesign of the Marava to get it close to the actual tonnage?

Please, do it.

Making plans that resemble the "canonical but wrong" plans, but match the canonical tonnage and kit, that's a thing even many canonistas approve of.

It's like in Trek... there are two klingon birds of prey...

One's a 12-man scout; the other's a 120-man frigate/destroyer. Mostly due to a retcon... One could take the excellent plans from DGP, and make them instead into a 450Td ship and be just fine (by writing a new data box), but the plans are not what's in the data box...

And most of us tend to consider the data-box more canonical than the plans, anyway.

 

[Whipsnade]

The question for me now, is whether or not I should attempt a redesign of the Marava to get it close to the actual tonnage?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times YES.

When I mentioned the Broadsword as a notoriously broken design I stupidly overlooked the same problem with the Marava.

Please, please, please do the voodoo that you do and create a set of plans that will actually work.

Please.

 

[77topaz]

The question for me now, is whether or not I should attempt a redesign of the Marava to get it close to the actual tonnage?

Why not? Just try to keep it looking and working somewhat like the original...

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Here's the issue: I've been able to shave off a hundred ton using my stamps but the ship is still running at 406 tons. The cargo area for the vessel is 72 tons. There is no way I can shave off two hundred tons and maintain the spirit of the Empress. A complete redesign might shave off an additional 100 tons because I'd remove the bow ramp and the two air locks from the engineering section It would permit me to narrow the design and save tonnage there but then there would be the lost of cargo space in excess of 6 tons.

The compromise: Leave the ship as I've have redesigned it. The present design which is 53.2 by 17.2 by 6 meters (Original 46.2 by 25.5 by 6 meters). I've added one lower upright berth and fuel scoops with purification units. Give me a few hours and I'll post the component tonnage like I did for the Dinra so you can see what I've done. I'll post the present redesign so you guys can look them over.

The truth: I expect that my design is closer to the actual size and tonnage of the Empress as depicted by GDW (Since those are the design in the image gallery and the basis for this study). I have often wonder why there were two vessels (Free and Far Trader) were the same tonnage consider the term "Far" indicated a vessel with a longer range and larger cargo capacity to conduct trade over vast distances?

The Disconnect: The reason I went over to drawing starships there was a disconnect between generating a starship and representing it on paper as a deckplan. You can look at any design done by current and past publishers of Traveller and see that power plants and drives take up a very small amount of the ship. They maybe acurate according to the generated tons but actually take up a very small amount of the ship overall design. The fuel for the Marava is 44 tons, or 1/5 of the total volume of the ship which could explain the shorten deck over the cargo bay as depicted by fig-1 but in the deckplans show it to be a greater area than the cargo area. One way to solve this is by depicting fuel tanks as being four seperate tanks and leaving the area above the cargo area as blank (Which I may do.)

Please give me input here because I'm not a gearhead espeically when it comes to designing and generating Traveller ships.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Here is a little suprize:

4 Passenger cabins = 4 tons (16 tons)
3 High Passage cabins (includes captain’s suite) = 10.5 tons (31.5 tons)
1 Upper Passenger Lounge= 23.6 Tons
1 Office= 2.5 tons
2 Airlock= 4 tons (8 tons)
1 Entry Lounge= 4 tons
2 Turrets = 6.5 tons (13 tons)
2 Cargo Airlocks = 4 tons (8 tons)
2 Fuel Control Stations = 4 tons (8 tons)
1 Stores = 5 tons
1 Cryobeds = 5 tons
1 Bridge= 9 tons
1 Day Cabin = 4 tons
1 CPU = 5 tons
1 Crew quarters = 5 tons
1 Cargo Bay = 72 tons
1 Cargo Ramp = 16 tons
2 Fuel Scoops = 15 tons (30 tons)
2 Engineering Sections = 68.8 tons (137.6 tons)
1 Fuel Tank = 143 ton (If treated as a half deck 71.5 tons of fuel)
1 Air raft Hanger = 5 tons

551.2 total tons (if fuel tank is treated as half deck 479.7 tons)

Subtract everything on the exterior of the hull (Turrets and Fuel Scoops) 35 tons reduces the tons 444.7 tons

After going over the numbers for each element of the drawing I was shocked to see the actual weight being almost 600 tons after doing quick method (53.2 by 17.2 by 6 meters divided by 13.5 = 406 tons).

 

[Rigel Stardin]

I made a mistake the deminsions should read 52.3 by 25.8 by 6 meters

quick tonnage is 599.7 Tons.

 

[aramis]

Okay, granted, if he changed it enough and didn't mention anything about Traveller he could probably get away with it, but that'd kinda be defeating the object...

Given the OGL & TTL, even selling it using the Traveller Trademarks Is in bounds. Any ship design using T20 design sequences is open content (tho the sequences aren't), and the designs and sequence in MGT are both open content, but the shown MGT deckplans aren't.

Multiple ways to go about it.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Given the OGL & TTL, even selling it using the Traveller Trademarks Is in bounds. Any ship design using T20 design sequences is open content (tho the sequences aren't), and the designs and sequence in MGT are both open content, but the shown MGT deckplans aren't.

Multiple ways to go about it.

But it's OTU, which is forbidden. Changing the name might work.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

These are the Marava plans I normally use:

http://www.sff.net/people/kitsune/traveller/peter/images/empress marava lg.png

 

[aramis]

But it's OTU, which is forbidden. Changing the name might work.

Wrong. The only elements you can't justify under the foreven free license are systems/worlds. Gear and ships are easily covered, unless they're hiver or K'Kree.

Really, Andrew, read the licenses in the dev kit...

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Question: Does an empty cargo deck weigh as much as a full one? I understand it takes up the same volume but does a large open space like a cargo deck or hanger for that matter, weigh the same as room full of equipment or a stateroom?

 

[77topaz]

Question: Does an empty cargo deck weigh as much as a full one? I understand it takes up the same volume but does a large open space like a cargo deck or hanger for that matter, weigh the same as room full of equipment or a stateroom?

It probably weighs less, unless the air inside is a very heavy gas or something...

 

[aramis]

Question: Does an empty cargo deck weigh as much as a full one? I understand it takes up the same volume but does a large open space like a cargo deck or hanger for that matter, weigh the same as room full of equipment or a stateroom?

It still counts as the same tonnage for ship purposes... because the "displacement ton" is 14 Cubic Meters, with (depending upon ruleset) a limit of either 10 or 14 metric tons of stuff in it.

Traveller ship's tons are always "volume" based.

 

[Icosahedron]

Question: Does an empty cargo deck weigh as much as a full one? I understand it takes up the same volume but does a large open space like a cargo deck or hanger for that matter, weigh the same as room full of equipment or a stateroom?

Obviously an empty space will weigh less than a full one, but the masses of ships are averaged out over the whole ship. I would imagine that when you allocate 'mass' to a cargo area (perhaps for thrust calculation purposes) you would need to allocate a 'typically filled' mass, cos if you calculate your thrust based on an empty hold, you'll struggle when you come to carry anything.

Or am I missing the point of the question?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Wrong. The only elements you can't justify under the foreven free license are systems/worlds.

Ah! I'd forgotten about that.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

It still counts as the same tonnage for ship purposes... because the "displacement ton" is 14 Cubic Meters, with (depending upon ruleset) a limit of either 10 or 14 metric tons of stuff in it.

Traveller ship's tons are always "volume" based.

I was afraid of that...

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Outside the fact that Far Trader hard drive is going to be a few gigabits large after this posting in the Image Gallery, here are three ships based on the Empress Marava design. For simplicity sake I’m going to only list the dimensions for each ship. I will also include the fuel and cargo space if someone cares to reverse engineer these vessels.

The final result of my Marava study.

Countess
35.1 by 16.2 by 6 meters. 252.72 tons. 42.84 tons of Fuel. 64.44 tons of cargo space. 3 high passenger suites, 4 middle passage suites, 1 double occupancy berths, 4 lower berths, air raft hanger, 1 galley. Space for 1 turret in passenger area if turret is externally mounted (depiction would be a ladder located in the center of the common area, upper deck). Two fuel scoops

Duchess
Upper Deck : 35.1 by 16.2 by 3 meters. Lower deck: 40.2 by 16.2 by 3 meters. 271.08 tons. 42.84 tons of Fuel. 64.44 tons of cargo space. 3 high passenger suites, 4 middle passage suites, 1 double occupancy berths, 4 lower berths, air raft hanger, 1 galley. 2 turrets mounted on the side of the vessel, two fuel scoops.

Empress
Upper deck: 42.5 by 25.8 by 3 meters. Lower Deck: 45.8 by 25.8 by 3 meters. 506.24 tons. 102.62 tons of Fuel. 64.44 tons of cargo space. 3 high passenger suites, 4 middle passage suites, 1 double occupancy berths, 4 lower berths, air raft hanger, 1 galley, 1 passenger lounge, office and store. 2 turrets mounted on the side of the vessel, two fuel scoops with purification plants.

All designs have the basic design elements of the Marava. Revenue stream is the same accept for cargo space.

Reminder: My stamps are based on a 15 by 15 pixels which is basically a one to one ratio.

The Countess was an attempt to get the Empress down to 200 tons with keeping to 66 tons of cargo, and 44 tons of fuel. The Empress is a straight depiction of the Marava deckplans posted in the Image Gallery. The Duchess was an afterthought which contained all the major components of the Empress.

I've put a lot of time into this and my wife feels rejected at this moment, so I hope you enjoy these three ships. I'll be posting them in a few minutes...

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Is there room for one more variation of the Mavara? I was driving to work this morning and the design popped into my head. So if you need one more designs please express your desire to fill your hardrives. If this is the case, then I’ll put the final touches on it.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=26404

I've uploaded the newest design here, I hope you guys enjoy this one

 

[DangerousThing]

Rigel,

I am wondering: where do you take the space for the Avionics and Life Support from?

They aren't allocated space in the design sequences.
-
Jay